I find it extremely interesting to compare the Rationalists like Descartes and Spinoza to empiricists such as Locke and Hume. Their two philosophies are polar opposites. On the one hand, you have the rationalists who claim that the senses can’t be trusted at all and that the only truth is that which can be arrived at through pure reason and that, therefore, all we can really know is that we exist and nothing else is certain: everything else needs to be viewed with skepticism. On the other hand, you have the empiricists who rely solely on the senses to find truth and believe that there is no innate thought or idea, that we are all born ‘blank slates’ (to paraphrase Locke) and gain all knowledge through our experiences. Reading through both of
