Modernism: Continental Rationalism vs British Empiricism

The world of ancient philosophy was dominated by the dialectical struggle between Aristotle and Plato. In particular, the differences in their respective theories of universals and epistemology. In summary: according to Plato universals are real in a world distinct from physical things and are one over them. Knowledge of Platonic forms is before birth and  comes through recollection (i.e. deductive reasoning). For Aristotle, universals are real in their instantiations and knowledge of them is obtained through studying their instances (i.e. inductive reasoning). Once knowledge of the universal is induced, one may reason deductively.

During early Modernity, a new generation of philosophers was attempting to provide answers to timeless philosophical problems in a new spirit. In short, this involved a rejection of the Aristotelian-Scholastic philosophy painstakingly developed in the Medieval period. For early Moderns like Descartes, the thought that sensation could provide any knowledge of the real world was absurd. In this way, Descartes is stringently Platonic – truth was known a priori and man reasons deductively from what he knows innately. Philosophers of the European continent (i.e. Continental) such as Spinoza and Leibniz would continue to work in the rationalist tradition through the 17th century.

However (not unlike the arrival of Aristotle), across the sea on the British Isles there arose a school of empiricists. This movement was led by philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Locke and Hume. Their thesis was that while deductive reasoning is useful for deducing the various logical connections between things, knowledge is fundamentally a posteriori and developed through sensory experience and inductive reasoning. The empiricists placed a special emphasis on the burgeoning modern scientific method.

While there are philosophers that buck the trend, many of the philosophers of the early Modern period can be classified as either Continental Rationalist or British Empiricist. In the same vein, many philosophers of the post-Socratic period could be regarded as Platonic or Aristotelian.