Plato

Rationalist that believes we can gain synthetic knowledge from reason.


The allegory of the cave
'Unenlightened' people that live in a cave survive only on the senses to gain knowledge.
If they see only their shadows, they will be falsely perceiving and won't have real knowledge of what is around them, just illusions. Not until they see daylight, will they have access to reality and truth. This proves that our senses give illusions and not the real truth.

Criticisms..

• There is no proof of this story.
• Nietzsche: Prejudice argument that separates experience and reason into 'good' and 'bad' categories.

The Forms - A way of showing a true form of something using reason. 

For example, the form of a circle. Only a priori reasoning/our minds would reveal the true form to us because no-one has ever seen a real circle. What we are seeing are 'imperfect circles'. 

Criticisms..

• Sense experience does give us the idea of a perfect circle because we see what we think is a perfect circle, no matter whether it is or not. 
• Without sense experience, we wouldn't have the concept of a circle.